I’ve just added together all the entries in the four weeks of giveaway (160 in total), put that number into a random number generator, and gone to find entry number 124, which was made in week 4 and belonged to Amy M.
I’ve sent Amy an email. I’m excited to know what story elements she comes up with!
In this excerpt post from The Flavour of Our Deeds, Kitty has been invited not just to tea, but to stay for a few nights until her sister returns to town.
Halfway through the afternoon, the butler announced that the Marquis of Aldridge wondered if Lady Catherine was at home. The gentleman in question was standing at the butler’s shoulder, one sardonic eyebrow raised.
Kitty leapt to her feet, but remembered her manners and greeted him politely. So did Pierrot, with a sniff to his boots and a sharp yap as he sat and offered his paw. Aldridge bent and gravely shook it.
“May I offer you refreshments, my lord?”
“If it pleases you,” he said, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes, “you may fetch your pelisse and bonnet, and have your maid pack what you might need for several nights’ stay and bring it over to Haverford House. My mother has sent me to invite you for a short stay, for the sake of appearances. She also has another young guest whom I believe you shall be pleased to see.”
Young. So not Luke, who had been at pains on several occasions to point out the decade and a bit that separated their ages. “Paul has been released?” she asked.
“Into my custody,” he confirmed. “And before you ask, Ogilvy has been moved to a private room, where he shall have every comfort and a private guard to see to his safety.”
Kitty felt as if she could breathe freely for the first time since she woke to Thomson’s invasion. “I shall be five minutes,” she said, and hurried up to her room, giving the footman in the hall a message for Millie to meet her there.
Soon, she and Aldridge were on their way in the marquis’s exquisite high-perch phaeton, behind one of the sweetest-going teams she’d ever seen. Millie would follow with her bags.
With her anxiety lifted just a little, Kitty was able to enjoy her journey, especially when the crowds of London dropped behind them, leaving farmland and estates on either side of the road. Haverford House was on the Thames, several miles upriver from the capital.
The great house was in the shape of an H, with an ornate fence barring those without business from the huge front courtyard. Not them, though. The gatekeeper heard the toot of Aldridge’s groom’s horn, and had the gates open before the team swept through without breaking pace.
Whenever Kitty came here to visit her godmother, she felt like a princess called to attend a queen.
They swung in a large arc and pulled to a stop before the flight of steps that led up to a pair of doors that Kitty, as a child, had believed to be created for and by giants. The butler was already opening one of them, and standing before it to await the entry of the marquis and his guest.
Another servant stood ready to conduct Kitty to the duchess, but Aldridge waved him off.
He picked up Pierrot, who made no objection. “I shall escort Lady Kitty myself,” he said, and, with the dog in his arms, took her up four flights of stairs to the third level of the building, through the main wing of the house to the family wing, and then along a passage to the rooms that housed the nursery and schoolroom.
“We’ve made young Paul comfortable up here, with my sisters,” he told Kitty. Sure enough, they entered a large comfortable sitting room, where Paul sat on the hearth rug with the duchess’s youngest ward, Frances Grenford. Her Grace of Haverford and her other two wards, Jessica and Matilda, watched as Paul and Frances toasted bread and cheese over the fire.
“Again?” Aldridge asked him. “Good afternoon, Mama, ladies.”
Paul returned Aldridge’s grin. “You hauled me away from the bagwig’s office before I could eat the last lot,” he complained.
She won’t be sold into marriage.
He won’t wed her for any amount of money. Only love.
If he can just figure out a way!
Harry Seymour arrives home from years of fighting abroad to learn he must clean up the family mess. His father demands Harry honor a deal he made with his best friend for Harry to marry the man’s daughter…for money.
Harry, who’s loved Sara Fleming since she was four, has no problem marrying her. He never did, even when she was denied him because she was the Whiskey King’s daughter.
But he won’t wed her for money.
Sara cannot accept the bargain her father made. She’s already left two men at the altar because she didn’t love either one. And if she can’t wed Harry for love, she’ll marry no one. But she wagers she’ll walk away a spinster…and happy if Harry will do her the favor of ruining her.
It’s a bet Harry can’t refuse.
Can he?
***
She is so wrong for him.
Miss Josephine Meadows is so young. In love with life. His accountant in his work for Whitehall. Her father’s heir to his trading company—and his espionage network.
Lord Stanton cannot resist marrying her. But to ensure Wellington defeats Napoleon, they must save one of Josephine’s agents.
Far from home, amidst a horrific storm, Stanton discovers that his new bride loves him dearly.
Can he truly be so right for her?
And she for him?
I am a bit obsessed with how different travel was before the railways. However, one need hasn’t changed, though the job that arises from it is now completely different.
Imagine, if you will, a world in which all motor mechanics and all their knowledge vanish overnight. How long would it be before we had major problems getting to where we needed to be, growing the crops we needed, and buying the goods we wanted? Even maintaining the roads would soon be beyond us as the motor-driven bulldozers and ditchdiggers ground to a halt.
Once, most of those needs were met by horse power. In Regency times, when the railway engine was just a local device, still unproven for more than moving materials from mine to barge, and cars and tractors had not been imagined, the invention of mechanical engines to provide power for travel, travel on the roads depended on horses, maintenance of the roads depended on horses, planting and harvesting depended on horses. (By the 18th century, horses had almost entirely replaced oxen in English agriculture.)
In the past, the importance and education of farriers has been seen through the lens of the vetinary specialists who replaced them in treating animal injuries and illnesses. I’ve been reading a thesis that revisits that story, and suggests that farriers were much more important and better educated than previously thought.
The good health of horses, particularly foot health, depended on farriers. When you think that a typical large inn on the Great North Road might own 2,000 horses for hire and that estimates of horse number in England at the turn of the century in 1800 sit somewhere around 1.5 million, you begin to get an idea of how much the farrier’s skill mattered. England would have ground to a halt if they were as useless as has sometimes been suggested. Farriers “cared for the most important animal in English society, attending to its shoeing and caring for its fractures, illnesses and lesions.” [McKay, 2009]
The following excerpt gives some insight into the work of country farriers, such as the one in my new novella for the next Bluestocking Belles collection. McKay looks at the records for an estate regarding the bills paid by the Earl of Egremont to a farrier by the name of Peter Hay, and also at Hay’s accounts to work out what Hay actually did in Egremont’s extensive stables between the 1740s and the 1780s. Over that 40 year period, he visited the Egremont stables on average, 80 times a year.
First, Hay would simply shoe Egremont’s horses, which involved removing and then nailing the shoes onto the horse’s feet. Second, after shoeing the horses, he would obtain and apply ointments and waxes to the horse’s legs and hoofs. Third, he gave basic medical care to the horses. Aside from one visit, in which Hay sharpened a pitchfork, his visits fell into these three categories. [McKay, 2009]
An important part of Hay’s practice was making the medicines, ointments, and waxes he used in treating the horses.
The thesis also mentioned another farrier, Edward Snape, who was farrier to the King and also to the Horse Guard. He was known as Dr Snape, did his best (twice) to establish a college of equine medicine, and wrote a textbook called A Practical Treatise on Farriery. Not an uneducated man.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the role of the farrier had been reduced to shoeing horses, and the vetinary surgeon did everything else.
This week’s excerpt is the start of Love in Its Season, my novella for this year’s Bluestocking Belles with Friends collection.
The farrier plied his business from a barn on the outskirts of the lower town. It was not a particularly defensable position, Jack noted as he led the two horses through the open gate. Too open, with access not only from the road, but from the lane that ran beside the neat cottage where the farrier presumably lived, and across the fields behind the barn.
But Jack was in peaceful England, not Spain or France or Mauritius or the Indies or any of the other far flung lands to which King George has sent his soldiers. Of which Jack was no longer one, and if he wasn’t Captain Jack Wrath of His Majesties 12th Lancers, who was he?
One of the horses took advantage of Jack’s inattention to pull sharply away to the right, towards a tub planted with peppermint and chamomile. Jack jerked on the lead rein, and received a hurt look from the other beast, Paul Gibson’s patient mount. However, his own recalcitrant gelding fell back into line.
Jack led them past the dusty curricle that stood outside the barn, its shaft empty, then slowed his steps as raised voices in the barn hinted at an altercation. He sped up again when he caught the words.
“I’ll have the constable on him. The man is mad. Locked up, that’s what he should be.” A man’s voice in the crisp accent of the aristocracy, the nasal tones shrill with anger.
“I’ll be giving you locked up!” That voice was deeper and rougher, with hints of a Welsh lilt overlaying the Cheshire vowels.
Jack hesitated. What was he getting himself into?
“Father, no!” A woman’s voice, sharp with fear.
“Keep him back,” the aristocrat sneered, “or I’ll shoot him like the mad dog he is.”
“He was only coming to my aid, my lord,” the woman protested. “You cannot blame a father for defending his daughter.”
Jack reached the open doors as the aristocrat hissed, “You need to learn your place, woman.”
“What is going on here?” Jack demanded, crisping his own pronunciation into a counterfeit of his so called betters.
What he saw had him dropping the reins and moving forward. This part of the barn had been divided off as a farrier’s workshop. The space was occupied by three people and two horses, the latter a pair of bays that Jack immediately characterised as more showy than sound.
The aristocrat was much as expected: tall, but with too much flesh for his height. Overdressed for the occasion, with lace at his neck and cuffs, and a coat the colour of squashed strawberries over a maroon waistcoat heavily embroidered in gold. Gold tassels on his boots, too, and gems glinting from his cravat, his fobs, and his rings.
It was the gun that had Jack moving. It was wavering between the two other people in the barn, and the hand that held it was shaking. The pompous lord was scared out of his mind.
The woman stood at bay, her hands held out palms backward as if to hold back the man behind her. She was nearly as tall as the lordling—nearly as tall as Jack himself. Muscular, too, with powerful shoulders. Her dark hair, curled like a crown on her head, proudly proclaimed she was a woman. He would have known anyway. Even in an old shapeless coat, men’s trousers, and a leather apron was so exquisitely female that Jack’s mouth dried. Her gaze met Jack’s, her dark eyes full of defiance, fear and anger.
A Review of the London Volunteer Cavalry and Flying Artillery in Hyde Park in 1804, unknown artist.
When including a soldier or a military unit in a Regency romance, an author has to ask who was in the area at the time, and what sort of military unit was it. At the time, the regular army was heavily committed overseas, in Portugal and Spain, in India, in the Americas–though, depending on the year, there were regiments who were not on active duty, or who were on home defense duty. The two other options were the militia and the volunteers. Think of the militia as a sort of army reserve, and the volunteers as the home guard. Not quite, but sort of.
The regular army and the milita had long been a feature of Britain. The army was relatively small before the Napoleonic threat–just 45,000 men, two thirds of whom were stationed abroad. They had recruiting issues, and the rank and file were notoriously those who had few other choices–the poor, the unskilled, those who didn’t fit in.
Militia on parade
The militia in Georgian Britain, by contrast, were part-time soldiers serving one month a year in peacetime. There had been a militia since 871, so they were an older establishment than the army itself. By the mid 18th century, every county had to supply, and pay for, a certain number of militia. They were chosen by ballot, though they had the option to pay someone else to serve in their place. They had to serve for four years and did one week’s training four times a year. They served in their home county, and could be called out to deal with an emergency.
With the rising threat from France, the government first passed a law to increase the militia by a further 60,000 men. The innovators didn’t provide any money, so the spaces were filled by those who could afford to pay for their own uniforms and weapons. In other words, the upper and middle classes. Then, after a major military defeat in 1797, the government called for each county to find out how many men were within their borders, and how many would volunteer to defend Britain.
They were stunned by the response. By 1803, 380,000 men had volunteered. The officers tended to be from the upper classes, and the ranks from the lower middle class. Volunteers were exempt from military service and from taxes. They committed themselves to local defense in case of invasion or insurrection, but otherwise remained civilians.
The volunteer forces proved to be a problem. The State couldn’t afford to outfit and train them, and the small local volunteer forces operated outside of military rule, and often refused to serve outside of their own area. There were also manpower problems in the other military units, since men would rather be volunteers than militia, and militia than regular army.
The government went down the compulsory service line, and between 1806 and 1815, volunteer units were disbanded. In many cases their members were taken into militia units. However, this was not the last time Britain raised volunteer forces to its defence.
Enter as many times as you can this week. This is your last chance at a weekly prize and the major prize, drawn after week 4 closes.
To celebrate the launch of the first book in my new series, A Twist in a Regency Tale, I’m running a four-week giveaway, with a free book each week plus great weekly prizes and a grand prize at the end.
Week 4 runs from 16 February to 22 February.
You can enter the giveaway, and go in the draw, by helping me share the good news about Lady Beast’s Bridegroom.
Every entry in the rafflecopter will go in the draw. This means you could have multiple chances to win a prize.
The first 10 names drawn will each be sent a set of book-shaped earrings with the cover of Perchance to Dream (book 4 in the series).
Those 10 names will go back in the draw and one will win a $10 gift card. (USD value)
All entries from every week go into the grand prize draw, and the grand winner will be announced between 24 February and 28th February.
The grand winner receives:
This week, I’m giving away Revealed in Mist, a Regency adventure-romance with my detective hero and his beloved spy heroine.
Or download from BookFunnel: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/3mosso62it
This excerpt gives you my hero and his best friend.
After washing off the dust of the journey and changing into clean clothes, he set out in search of a dinner. He was just about to enter a pie shop that looked clean and was busy enough to hint at tolerable food when he was hailed.
“Peter! I thought you were buried for life in the country!” He turned to see Captain John Forsythe, who had served with Peter during the Peninsular campaign and later in Belgium. As tall as Peter himself, John had dark hair while Peter’s was fair. John was altogether more massively constructed, so that he felt as strongly about the nickname ‘Bull’ as Peter did about being called ‘Beau’.
Strictly speaking, the man was Captain Lord John Forsythe, but he refused to use the honorific, saying he had done nothing to deserve it beyond being born in a marquess’s family some years after his older brother.
John looked in the doorway of the pie shop and protested. “Not here, Peter. I can do better for you than that. I’m off to my club to have dinner. You will join me, of course.”
“I thought I’d just pick up a pie,” Peter told him.
“Not enough to keep body and soul together.”
“I don’t know,” Peter protested. “Remember that pork pie in Belgium?” After Waterloo, that had been. A baker, delirious with joy at the defeat of Napoleon, had given them her entire day’s baking as they passed her establishment on their way back into Brussels. After handing most of the haul out to the men they’d managed to bring back with them, John and Peter had shared the last pie.
“Pure heaven,” John agreed. “But so is the roast beef at Westruthers, Peter. Come on. Eat with me. I want to know what you’ve been up to.” His mouth twitched upward in a smile. “And I want to tell you about my betrothed.”
“You are betrothed? John! When did that happen? Who is the unfortunate lady?” He fell into step beside his friend and listened to rhapsodies about the most perfect and lovely woman in the world all the way to the club and on through most of the two courses of a delicious meal.
Eventually, even John realized he was repeating himself. “I am sorry, Peter. You should have stopped me. You cannot be interested in where Belinda is buying her bridal clothes and what linen she has chosen for our new townhouse.”
“I need to meet the lady for whom you have become interested in such things, John.”
“Come with me tomorrow afternoon and I’ll introduce you,” John proposed, and when Peter demurred, saying that he would not want to play gooseberry, John said it was no such thing. “For I am never allowed to be alone with her, more is the pity. Even when I proposed, her mother sat on the other side of the room. And no wonder. She is a diamond, Peter, in every way. Do come along, for her drawing room will be crowded with callers and it will be good to have a friend of my own there.”
And why not, after all? His appointment with Mr. Richards was at noon, so he was sure to be free by three o’clock. “Very well. I’ll come and make the acquaintance of your paragon. When is the wedding?”
That set John off again. The date had been set for after the end of the Season, and none of John’s representations had served to move it closer. “Her mother will not hear of it,” he complained. “I promised we would remain in town so that Belinda could continue to enjoy the parties and so forth, but her mother insists. They will not even announce the betrothal, or allow me to speak of it.” He sighed.
“What does your betrothed say?” Peter wondered.
“Oh, that she cannot wait to be my wife, but she feels she owed it to her mama to abide by the lady’s wishes. And I do see that. Belinda is the Weatheralls’ only daughter, and Weatherall tells me that his wife and Belinda have spent all winter planning for the fun of the Season.”
John managed not to raise his eyebrows. “I collect that Miss Weatherall is a young lady, just out?”
“This is her third Season, but she has had a hard time of it in other years, poor dear. Girls jealous of her beauty have been very cruel to her. I cannot help but admire her courage in returning. She is wonderful, Peter, and very mature for her age, I assure you. A great reader, and feels just as she should on all the things important to me.” His eyes stared into nothing and his lips curved in a fatuous smile. “And as beautiful as the dawn.”
He continued to extol the virtues of his beloved until Peter declared himself ready for bed after his days of travel, and they parted with an arrangement to meet the following afternoon.
Her Grace the Duchess of Winshire asked her daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Haverford, to pour the tea. Her youngest stepdaughter, Rosemary, handed the cups around, her ward Frances following behind with plates of delicate treats.
The ladies who had gathered at Eleanor Winshire’s invitation chatted amongst themselves, waiting patiently for Eleanor to explain why she had called them together.
They were some of the most influential ladies of London, all of them connected to Eleanor by marriage, friendship or family. Eleanor planned to put them to work. She waited until all of them had been served, and then she spoke.
“Ladies.”
The hum of conversation in the room trailed away, and all eyes turned to Eleanor. She had planned how to begin, what happened next would be up to her friends and allies.
“A newcomer to Society is being targetted with lying gossip, and I want to help her. I would welcome your advice and assistance.”
Those gathered nodded or inclined their heads, but no one spoke.
“I speak of the former Lady Arial Bledisloe, daughter of the House of Stancroft and now Viscountess Ransome,” she explained.
Someone, she did not see who, breathed, “Lady Beast.”
“Yes,” said Eleanor. “That is the problem in a nutshell. A fine young woman subjected to such a heinous name. What, ladies, do we know about her and her husband? And about those who are campaigning against her?”
Welcome to book 1 in the new series with an exciting new twist on traditional fairy tales!
Lady Ariel lives retired in the country after being badly scarred by a fire. She hides her burns from others by donning a mask, only enticing more gossip by Society who has dubbed her “Lady Beast”. Now, her second cousin, who inherited her father’s title but not his private wealth, wants to have her committed so he can manage—and steal—her fortune. Only finding a husband will prevent the cousin from having his way.
Peter, Lord Ransome, a man so handsome Society has dubbed him “Beau”, inherits not only his father’s debts but also his burdens. He must manage and care for a stepmother who loathes him, her daughters, and his own two half-sisters, who spend more money than the estate can provide.
His only recourse is to find a wealthy bride to save his estate and his family. For him, that means marrying “Lady Beast”. It’s merely a business transaction, after all. But then Beau learns that true beauty lies in the heart.
When Society tries to turn them away, is the union and love of Beauty and the Beast strong enough to overcome prejudice and rejection?
A Twist Upon a Regency Tale
Lady Beast’s Bridegroom
One Perfect Dance
Snowy and the Seven Doves
Perchance to Dream
Published this come week. Get it now! https://amzn.to/3uJByrr
In his bath, Peter contemplated his own disappointment that he’d been exiled to another bedroom. He should be grateful that, after their first joining, she had removed the mask in the dark and gone to sleep in his arms. She had trusted him that much, and when she woke in the night and reached for him, he had had the joy of kissing her without any obstruction in the way. Which had led to round two.
In the morning, he woke to hear her behind the dressing screen, and when she returned to bed, the half mask was back in place. He expected too much, too soon. She had trusted him enough to give him her body. It would take time before she could bear to be naked with him.
The small bit of distance was to his benefit, too. This marriage was a civil arrangement. He did not intend to spoil it by becoming besotted with his bride.
He was already serving his breakfast when Arial arrived in the dining room. He had not been joking about his hunger. Despite the crumpets, he was ravenous.
And not just for food, he decided, when she entered the room and his male organ stood to instant attention. It seemed he could not get enough of his wife. It was probably just that he hadn’t been with a woman for a long time, though that thought seemed so disloyal that he quelched it immediately.
Whatever the reason for his sudden surfeit of lust, he had to content himself with a peck on the cheek and a cheeky comment whispered in her ear so the attending footman could not hear it.
Her blush would have to be satisfaction enough for the moment, especially as Miss Tulloch took that moment to join them.
The girls had already eaten but came hurrying down from the schoolroom when they heard the newly-weds were up and dressed. They were delighted with the day’s plans but took exception to Arial’s plain mask.
“But the one you made for my wedding will not go with this gown,” she protested. It was some tailored confection in a dark maroon, almost the color of a good port. Peter had signed for payment of enough dressmaker bills for his stepmother and stepsisters to know that daytime costumes could fit into categories of day dress, walking dress, and afternoon dress, but which this was he had no idea. It was charming, anyway.
Rose agreed. “Not at all, but we can do something quickly with pastels. I think some of the ones that old artist gave me are the right colors. Come on, Vi.”
